Subject: PLAGAL Submission: Gay Genes -- Concern and Denial
From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 09:01:33 -0400 (EDT)

Media Release From:

THE PRO-LIFE ALLIANCE
OF GAYS AND LESBIANS

Post Office Box 33292
Washington, DC 20033
Tel: (202) 223-6697
Fax: (202) 265-9737
Internet:  Plagal [email-masked]

For Further Information:
Tom Sena (202) 223-6697

GAY GENES:  CONCERN AND DENIAL

Washington, DC   June 1, 1997.   The May 27, 1997, issue of The Advocate with
its cover article on abortion, is a most welcome contribution to the debate
within the lesbian and gay community over abortion, especially as it deals
with the ramifications of the"gay gene."   When that gene or set of genes is
finally discovered, as I'm convinced it will be, the discovery will further
transform our community's debate.  Even now, the mere possibility of a
genetic component in homosexuality has prodded abortion advocates among us
toward a rethinking, even if reluctantly, of their long-cherished position.

	A letter to The Washington Blade (D.C.'s primary gay publication) provides a
handy example of concern and denial jostling each other in the minds of many.
 A letter of mine about the gay gene had appeared in the previous issue,
which drew the following response appearing in the next:  "I agree," wrote
the author, "that it would be a heinous atrocity for a woman to abort  her
child because it [sic] carries a 'gay gene'.  If anyone were to actually do
so, it would indeed be a tragic consequence" of genetic research.

	Well, so far so good.  We can actually agree with one another on a clear
case where abortion is wrong.  I doubt such agreement would have been
possible before; here is progress.   But progress goes only so far at this
point.  She continues: "Because the child is gay is not a valid reason to
have an abortion.  But"--and here's where progress gets murdered in its
tracks--"there are many other reasons a woman may choose" to abort her child.

	We've seen her concern.  Now behold her denial.  Certainly, in her mind,
there are many reasons, maybe an infinite number of them, why a woman may
have the abortion, all of them justifiable if the woman thinks so.  That
until very recently was the party line.  Now, however, the line gets smudged,
because of the competing line we draw at the bodies of our fellow homosexual
unborn.  If a woman wants an abortion because her unborn child has spina
bifida, for example, then we say that of course abortion is the right choice
if that's what the woman decides.  But if she wants to abort her child
because she or he is gay, now we will do something new, previously undreamt
of:  We somehow dredge up the courage from some deep personal moral resource
we'd forgotten was even inside of us till now and finally, at long last,
declare in the open that abortion is wrong.

	Very interesting.  So abortion is very acceptable morally if the unborn
child has, oh, congenital heart disease, or severe mental handicaps, or even
if she is perfectly healthy but has the bad luck to be unwanted.  These can
all go.  Open the dumpsters wide for their remains--but not for ours!  We and
we alone are the exception to the much-trumpeted right to abortion.  Only we
can offer sufficient reason to be spared the scalpel and the suction, or the
scissors in the skull.  No other category of human beings can claim exemption
without endangering this treasured choice.  But we can, and we do.  Loudly.

	And behind our cries for our own people's right to life lies a thick and
heavy silence, the silence of all those millions of voices who will never be
heard because we consider their right to life less important than ours.

	Denial is a large state;  it covers much territory.  But it, too, really can
go only so far.  In fact, for those with mental integrity among us, its reach
doesn't extend beyond one half-minute's honest thought.  If we bring
ourselves to admit that abortion is wrong when used to exterminate gay people
for being gay, then in simple consistency we have to rethink the morality of
abortion in and of itself.

	What do we do with that, if we believe as many of us sincerely do that
abortion is a moral option?  We deny, deny, deny.  But here's where the hard,
solid ground inevitably trembles and collapses into quicksand.  Once we
acknowledge that even just some unborn human beings deserve respect and
protection, it very quickly becomes very difficult to draw an artificial line
and say, "All you over there, you're out of luck!"  There for abortion
advocates lies the quandary.  If gay unborn children have a right to life,
then so does every other unborn child, without exception, without denial.
_________________
Thomas Sena, of Washington, DC,  founded the Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and
Lesbians in 1990 to advance the pro-life cause within the lesbian and gay
community.